Cheers & Jeers

U.S. President Donald Trump is shown in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Jan. 12, 2018, in Washington. — Evan Vucci/The Associated Press

Jeers: to low-minded language. Seriously, what kind of world do we find ourselves in when the president of the United States feels it necessary to refer to any nation as a “shithole”? The Washington Post reported Thursday that Trump remarked during an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” and suggested the United States would be better off with immigrants from countries like Norway. By Friday morning, Trump was denying having used that term, but by then umbrage was spreading across the planet. The African Union told The Associated Press it was alarmed by Trump’s comment, stating, “Given the historical reality of how many Africans arrived in the United States as slaves, this statement flies in the face of all accepted behaviour and practice.” The South African media outlet Daily Maverick took it a step further, writing, “Casual Friday at the White House is soon to include hoods and tiki torches at this rate.”

Cheers: to a right among wrongs. A 20-year-old man from Conception Bay South learned the hard way last week that dumping garbage illegally is never a smart move. Evan Davies was trying to dispose of evidence that he’d had a party in his parents’ absence, but he did a few things wrong: first, he tried to find an unlocked dumpster in which to stash the trash — never good form, given how much dumpsters cost to rent — then he dumped the garbage bags off Minerals Road instead of bringing them to the landfill, and they were found and traced back to Davies’ house. He ended up with a $100 fine. We’ll give him credit for one thing, though: at least he cleaned up the house.

Cheers: to daring escapes. A quick-thinking 70-year-old butcher in Totnes, southwest England, used what he had at hand to free himself after he became trapped in his -20 C walk-in freezer last month. Chris McCabe realized the safety button was frozen and he didn’t have time on his side, but he kept calm and cudgelled on, using a three-foot length of blood pudding to batter the door open, much like a fearless British copper on the tely. It took several blows of the 1.5 kilogram baton to do the trick. “I'm lucky really,” he told the BBC. “We sell about two or three each week and that was the last one in there.” McCabe buys his puddings from no less than HM Sheridan of Ballater, Aberdeenshire, the Queen’s butcher in Scotland. Barry Florence, director of HM Sheridan, told the U.K. Courier, “I’m delighted Chris is alright, and that I managed to play a small part in him getting out his freezer. The quality of the black pudding obviously helped save his life.”